LinuxCNC and stepper motors with feedback (mechaduino or equivalent)

Hello,

Has anyone tried any stepper motors with feedback?

I have been looking at mechaduino and some other similar for a router/plasma table I am building. Would it possible to use a serial in place of step and dir pins?

Thanks,
Wylie

Are you aware of closed loop steppers? The Leadshine examples may be a bit overspecified but they have a lot of advantages. Given how few components there are on the Mechaduino PCB, it seems very expensive...

Are you aware of closed loop steppers?

I am and I have a couple of steppers sitting on my self doing nothing at this point that I would like to use. If I was starting from nothing I would be looking at new options.

Given how few components there are on the Mechaduino PCB, it seems very expensive...

I am not sure that component count is necessarily a good measure of cost, but yeah I agree they are. I had some spare space on a PCB panel I was ordering so I filled it with a couple of things, one was Mechaduino. Just because I thought it was interesting and would give it a try.

However, LinuxCNC does not currently have a realtime driver for the PC serial ports (I am not sure why) so you would have to use some alternative hardware.

What would be involved in writing a realtime serial driver in your opinion?

It is possible, my machines both use serially-controlled servo drives.

Is it done by a Mesa card or are they not LinuxCNC controlled machines?